Only Time Will Tell
by BluFox15
Summary: It's a difficult life, being born in the wrong body. Few people know that better than her. A bit of angst, mostly friendship. Now a series of connected short stories. Trans!Danny
1. A Girl and Her Guardian

It was a clear, calm day in Amity Park. The sun shone high and bright, just warm enough to be comfortable in cool clothes. The wind blew every so often, making the trees dance.

On a day like this, it wasn't unusual for the park to be as busy as it was. Several families and couples were sitting on blankets and enjoying the good weather. Children were running around, playing several games of tag at once. There was even a dog or two, running back and forth in a never-ending game of fetch.

One of the many people enjoying this beautiful day was a young girl. She was very petite, managing to look a couple years younger than she was. Her crossed legs swung underneath a white free-flowing skirt, and her flat black shoes had been kicked off at some point due to a mix of absent-mindedness and comfort. She also wore a light green tank top, and her bare arms looked thin but surprisingly muscular as she turned a page in her book. Under a white and green newsboy cap, a few black hairs poked out. Her smile was content.

She continued to read her book, enjoying the entirely too-perfect day, when she felt a sudden weight around her neck and heard every backround noise come to a halt. She blinked a few times, breathing out a sudden burst of cold air, and managed to keep from rolling her eyes when she realized what happened. She closed her book with a thump and turned vibrant green eyes to the company she gained within a literal instant. "Hi, Clockwork," she said, sounding fond and exasperated at the same time.

The Ghost of Time smiled at her, though it very nearly came out as a smirk. "Hello, Danny," he replied, shifting in form from middle-aged to a young boy. The smirk-smile didn't look any less out of place. "I see you've been practicing."

Danny shrugged a little, placing her book to the side. "Yeah, I have. Finally got rid of my glow, though on such a bright day it barely matters. My hair though..." She trailed off, reaching up to pull off her hat. A tumble of braided hair fell out, mostly stark white but tipped with about two inches of black. Danny looked back to Clockwork with a slight smirk. "But then, you knew that already."

"I did," Clockwork said, as though he needed to confirm what they both already knew. He absent-mindedly stroked a long white beard. "However, I wanted an excuse to visit, since you'd neglected to come to me."

It wasn't said in a scolding way, more teasing, but Danny still blushed and looked away, contrite. "Yeah, sorry about that. This has been my first ghost-free day in a month - well, _relatively_ ghost-free," she said with a grin, looking back at the now middle-aged man. "I wanted to see how long I could pass for human like this. I've been out here for hours!" The girl's excitement was practically visible, and it warmed the ghost to see it. But as she leaned back and let the satisfaction of a successful test run warm her through, he knew he needed to douse it, if only a little.

"This is not a solution," the boy said solemnly, and the girl's smile faded. She looked down, green eyes dark as she played with her hair.

"I know," she said softly, and almost against her will, a set of rings came to life around her waist and split in opposite directions, leaving behind a very human, very _male_ figure in jeans and a t-shirt. In the absence of her hair, Danny instead began to pick at the edge of her shirt.

Clockwork looked the young half-ghost over with wizened eyes. Her hair was pitch black and cut short, her eyes were ice blue and her pale skin had turned tan. This child was very nearly the polar opposite of the one who sat there a moment before, the only constant being the bronze and black time medallion hanging from the neck. But they both knew which form the young girl preferred.

"Daniel..." he started with a sigh, but Danny cut him off with a slight growl.

"You know I hate that name," she said with a glare. The blue, while human, was just as potent as ghostly green would've been. "You _know_, Clockwork."

"I know," said the Ghost of Time, and instead of being a teasing exchange it was now an attempt to placate the child. "Yet it is your name. One you do not change."

Danny did roll her eyes, now. She knew why she never picked a more feminine name for herself. Nothing seemed to fit. She had never wanted to be called Danielle, and she willingly left the name for her cousin to keep when she showed up. Yet she had rolled hundreds of other names in her head for years, and nothing worked. She stuck with Danny because that was who she was.

So long as no one called her _Daniel_.

They sat in silence for a long while. Danny slowly began to fidget under both the weight of the Time Master's stare and the unnatural silence of the world around them. Finally, she slumped forward and dropped her head in her hands. "I hate this," she whispered. "I hate it so much."

Clockwork's red eyes softened, but he said nothing, knowing that the girl needed to get this off her chest without interruptions.

"It's not fair," she moaned, "being trapped in the wrong body for so long. Being called 'son' and 'boy' and being to scared to say anything. And then the accident happened and for a moment... For one moment, I thought I was free. I mean, yeah, I thought I was _dead_, but if I had been it would've been worth it, just to wake up in the _right body_."

Danny sniffed a little. "And then I change back and it's almost a win-win situation, 'cause I'm still alive _and_ I get to be a _real girl_ whenever I want, except I can't! And it's like I have to choose between being a girl and being _alive_ and I _know_ which one I want more, Clockwork, and it scares me!"

With little warning, a heavy hand placed itself comfortingly on her shoulder. She looked up through blurry eyes to see a real smile on the man's face.

"You have been placed in an overwhelmingly difficult position, young one," he said softly. "A position that would've been far easier to bear had anything been different. I've seen worlds where you were all male, all female, all ghost, all human, and everything inbetween. But fear not." Clockwork's grin grew wider. "All is as it should be."

Danny snorted, wiping her eyes and smiling despite herself. "I'm beginning to think that you only ever say that to keep from saying anything that makes sense."

The old man chuckled warmly. "Perhaps. You'll find out soon enough, either way."

"And _there_ go the cryptic hints again. You can either tell me the future or not, but don't _hint_ like that, it drives me nuts!"

Clockwork smiled softly. "Keep practising. It may not be a solution, but it does bring closure." Danny blinked at the sudden straight-forwardness, but transformed into her ghost form without another word, picking up her hat and winding up her hair.

Once her hair and glow were fixed, she turned again to her companion. "Hey, Clockwork?"

"Yes?"

"I... I can't really say you cheered me up, since I wasn't depressed until you showed up, but I can guess that it was part of some plan that I won't know about until after the fact and - anyway..." She paused, blushing slightly at her word vomit. "Anyway. Thanks, Clockwork."

"You're very welcome, Danny." With another smile of all-knowing encouragement, his voice echoed through the world with the words "_Time In."_ In the very next instant, the welcoming sounds of an active spring day filled her ears again.

And all anybody saw for the rest of the day was a collection of families playing in the park, the trees dancing in the wind, and a young girl reading a book with her bare feet absently swinging to a silent beat. Her smile wasn't quite as content as before, but it remained as peaceful as ever.

* * *

**Okay, so... I'd kinda disappeared all last year. If anybody was actually looking for me ('cause don't lie, I'm not the most popular author in the fandom), I apologize. School was a bit of a mess.**

**But I do have something new, a concept that's been bugging me for weeks, months even. If anyone has one-shot ideas or any tips to share from those who are or know a transgendered person, I'd appreciate it. If I can, I want to build a world out of this.**

**So, anyway. Please enjoy it!**


	2. They Already Knew

One thing that Danny had always appreciated is that she never had to tell her friends her best-kept secret.

Tucker was first, having been friends with her since they were really young. Before she was even aware of how she felt about herself. She was curious about the games the girls would play and would even join in once or twice before noticing the strange looks the other boys gave her and starting to keep her distance. Tucker gave her odd looks, too, but the incident was forgotten fairly quickly.

However, as they grew older and Danny started to discover what exactly was so different about her compared to the other boys their age, she found himself paying closer attention to the girls' activities than what would've been considered subtle or respectful. More than once, she'd been declared a pervert for staring too long, and got in trouble once for trying to look into the girls' bathroom.

By then, she'd already ruined any chance she had at being considered normal because, while her actions would've been perverted but acceptable in high school, in elementary and early middle school boys just weren't _that_ interested in girls at that age. She was the wierd kid. And Tucker, being a better friend than most would've been, stayed by her. He even developed his own early reputation for being a womanizer (_"Tucker Foley - that's TF, as in Too Fine!"_) in order to throw the attention on Danny a little off-center.

By seventh grade, they were both near the bottom rung of the social ladder. Danny had always hated that she'd dragged Tucker down with her, but the boy simply laughed and said he was having too much fun to stop even if Danny's odd habits began the downward spiral.

"And you don't have to worry about me hitting on _you_ anytime soon," Tucker said almost as an afterthought. "You're like my best friend ever - it'd be a little awkward even if you were my type."

At that almost-simple statement, Danny had frozen in her tracks, stuttering over her words. Tucker looked back at her almost confused, save for the resolved look on his face. He knew exactly what he was saying. "What? That's what it is, isn't it? You don't look at those girls 'cause they look pretty, you wanna see what they _do_. It's pretty obvious. To _me_," he added quickly, noticing Danny's rapidly paling face. "It's obvious _to me_. I've known you pretty much our entire lives, girl. You can trust me."

And it was either that final confirmation of trust or the fact that he'd called her _girl_ that triggered Danny into giving her best friend the biggest hug she'd ever given. The hug she'd gotten back was just as strong and didn't that just make her day even better.

Later that evening, Danny had gotten permission from her parents to sleep over at Tucker's house and together they went looking for information. All Tucker had to do was search _girl in a boy's body_ and they got the term they were looking for. Transgender. They spent hours looking at article after article, nearly each one fitting her situation exactly. Some were like her, a girl in a boy's body, and others were the opposite, a _boy_ trapped in a _girl's_ body. Danny privately thought that her situation was worse, since tomboyish girls were more accepted than prissy boys, but said nothing aloud. One thing stuck out to her, though.

"I can't tell Mom and Dad," she said, and Tucker turned to look at her. "You know them. Always obsessed about ghosts. Anything unusual has to be a ghost's fault. Heck, _the fudge goes missing_, and Dad instantly breaks out the ectoguns, nevermind that he ate it all the night before. Bad enough they have a mildly perverted son, but a son who believes he's a girl? Who knows what they'd do..."

Tucker looked at her intently for a bit. "You really think they'll be that bad?"

"I _know_ they will. I won't tell them."

Silence, a sigh, and then: "Alright. We won't tell 'em. It'll be our secret, then. Right?"

Danny looked back over to Tucker, who still sat looking back but with a smile on his face. Slowly, Danny smiled back and nodded. "Yeah. It'll be our secret."

* * *

When a new family along with half a dozen moving trucks came to Amity Park the summer before eighth grade, it was barely worth noticing to most people.

Danny was not most people.

"Would you stop staring at her?" Tucker whispered the third time he'd caught her at it, snapping Danny out of her thoughts. "It's creepy. You're not gonna stalk her, are you?"

"No!" Danny said, slightly appalled. Even as she spoke, she turned her eyes back to the girl bustling back and forth from the moving truck to the house. "I'm just... interested. She's someone new, she's not like the other girls around here."

Tucker frowned. "Why, because she wears black? It's probably just a thing she does, it's nothing special."

"It's not because she wears black!" Not _just_, anyway. "Just _look_ at her, Tuck!"

"I'm looking, Danny. What am I looking at?"

"She's helping the movers with their stuff! Where the heck are her parents, shouldn't _they_ be helping?" Sure enough, the girl's parents were nowhere to be found, while she did the same amount of work as the heavily-muscled, grown men. Danny was sure the looks of vague admiration on the men's faces matched hers.

Tucker's frown deepened as he processed the information. "Huh. So, you're interested because she's... different?"

"Yes! She's not just new, she's _novel_. No one will know what to make of her. It'll be _great_."

"Geez, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you had a crush on her," Tucker said, teasing.

"_Tucker_."

"Yeah, I know. But still, this obsession's a little strange, Danny. And doesn't the novelty of something, or some_one_, wear off eventually?"

Danny only grinned. "Something tells me she'll last, Tuck." She looked back up to see the girl look up at them at lock eyes with hers. Danny waved a bit, earning her a calculating look before she slowly turned away and walked back into the house. Danny's grin didn't falter. "I can feel it."

* * *

"Have you been following me?"

Tucker squawked at the sudden interruption, nearly choking on his Nasty burger in the process. Danny jumped a little, looking up to see the new girl standing beside their table, hands on her hips and looking mildly annoyed. The look was molded with mild disgust as Tucker coughed up bits of meat as he cleared his windpipe. Danny absently handed him a napkin as she answered.

"I have been, a little. Tucker's more following _me_ than you though, so you don't have to worry about him. Much." She blatantly ignored Tucker's panicked look as the girl's annoyed look turned into a glare.

"Why?"

"Because you're different," Danny said plainly, and the lack of disdain in her voice obviously surprised the girl. "I know you are. You aren't the type of girl who would sit back and let men do all the work. You're not the type to wear clothes that match everyone else. And you're not the type to do anything other than defend yourself when you believe you're being threatened. In other words, you're not Amity's type."

Danny grinned widely. "And that's why I like you."

Tucker spluttered again. So did the girl, for a second. "_Like_ me?"

"Yeah. Not in a _like_-like way, but a 'I want to be your friend' kind of way. What do you think?"

The girl calmed down considerably when she learned that she didn't have a boy she didn't know in love with her, but she stared at Danny for a long time. After about ten seconds, Tucker squirmed uncomfortably. After thirty, so did Danny.

And after a minute, the girl held out her hand. "Sam Manson."

Danny smiled again, taking it. "Danny Fenton, and this is Tucker Foley." Tucker looked her up and down, and after a moment of hard thought, simply waved his hello. Danny looked at him astonished.

"What?" said the boy, looking back at her. "I'm not gonna hit on _her_. She'd be more likely to kill me than date me. No." He didn't seem to appreciate it much when Danny nearly fell out of her seat laughing at him, but he looked mollified when Sam simply shrugged and nodded in a well-it's-true kind of way, making Danny only laugh harder.

* * *

Things were cemented between the three of them on Danny's birthday, just before school started. Most of the gifts weren't very promising. Her mom had gotten her a watch, since 'she'd noticed _he_ didn't have one and timing is everything.' Jazz had gotten her a miniature telescope, which by itself was pretty cool, except it was engraved with her name. Her _full_ name. Topped off with a comment about 'knowing how much her little _brother_ loved the stars,' the thoughtfulness of the gift was dampened.

Dad had gotten her a football. She didn't say a word about it.

After she'd gotten away from the house, she went to Tucker's to celebrate in a way that would cheer her up a bit. She opened the box he'd given her to find a long silver necklace with a bright blue stone hanging from it. She looked up at him, and Tucker shuffled his feet a bit.

"I wasn't sure what to get you," he muttered to the wall, "since this is the first birthday you've had since we figured it out, and I didn't want something too girly 'cause you don't really like the make up and stuff, so I got this. T-the chain's long enough to hide under your shirt and the stone matches your eyes, so I thought, 'why not-'"

Tucker abruptly cut off when Danny hugged him really hard, mumbling her thanks rapidly into his shoulder. They only broke apart when Mrs. Foley had called up that Sam had arrived, and Danny quickly wiped her face and hid the necklace in her pocket before Sam opened the door.

"Hey, Danny," she said, coming over to hug her. Danny hugged her back, trying to blink her eyes enough so that they wouldn't look reddened in that I-spent-a-good-bit-of-my-birthday-crying sort of way.

If Sam noticed, she didn't say anything. She simply held out a small, unwrapped black box for her to take. Danny did so warily, unwilling to hurt Sam's feelings but equally unwilling to open another male-themed present. "Happy Birthday, Danny," she said, and that sealed it. She would do her best to put on a brave face and not let on about any disappointment. Danny drew in a silent breath, as though diving into a pool, and opened the box to reveal-

...A comb. A small, silver and blue decorative comb lightly engraved with vines and butterflies. A _feminine_ comb.

Danny stared at it for a very long moment, knowing that Tucker was doing the same. After several beats of silence, Danny looked up with glassy eyes to see Sam smiling at her.

"One of my cousins is FTM," she said, shrugging as though it was no big deal. It almost wasn't. "I know what to look for. It was obvious."

Danny blinked at the words, recalling when Tucker had said nearly the exact same thing months ago, and burst into laughter. She gripped the comb tightly, carefully, and pulled the necklace out of her pocket just so that she could hold them both.

She couldn't tell when the tears started again, but she was still smiling. She cried and smiled harder when she felt Sam hug her again, and when she felt Tucker put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

And when Tucker suggested they all go to the park, she eagerly agreed along with Sam.

It was the best birthday _ever_.

* * *

**A small tidbit that I'd just thought of today. I think I got what I wanted across pretty well. Like before, if anyone with experience with this could offer tips, I'd appreciate it. Please review, and tell me what you think!**


	3. Only the Beginning

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Tucker was pounding on the Fentons' front door.

"You know you don't have to knock that hard, right?" said Sam, standing off to the side with an eyebrow raised. Tucker simply shrugged, unrepentant.

"You never know when Mr. Fenton is talking too loudly to hear it. That's happened a few times." Tucker moved to knock again, but the door opened before he could, revealing Danny's older sister, Jazz.

"Hey, Sam. Hey, Tucker," she greeted, opening the door wider to let the two younger teens in.

"Hi, Jazz," said Sam. "Is Danny awake yet?"

Jazz frowned a little. "I'm not sure. He's almost never awake this early."

Sam blinked. "It's one in the afternoon."

"It's Saturday," Jazz replied back. "Plus Mom and Dad woke us up early last night to get us to witness the 'Grand Reveal' of one of their weird inventions. It didn't work, _obviously_, so they got us up at two in the morning for nothing." Jazz rolled her eyes in annoyance, and Tucker looked a little interested.

"A new invention, huh? What was it?"

"Doesn't matter," Jazz waved him off, leaving Tucker to slump. "Mom and Dad just sort of gave up on it when it didn't work. They're out of the house, by the way, so it'll be just you and Danny."

"You're going out, huh?" asked Sam.

Jazz smiled. "Yup. Going to the bookstore. I'll probably be there all day. When Danny wakes up, don't let him stay in bed all day, alright?"

Tucker refrained from rolling his eyes. Sam did no such thing. "Okay, _mother dear_, we'll get Danny up and out of bed soon enough." Jazz raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm, but didn't say anything as she raised a hand in goodbye to both of them and went out the door.

When the door was closed, Tucker turned to Sam. "Should you really antagonize her so much?"

"What? She always talks as though just because she's older, we can't think for ourselves. It's annoying."

"Yeah, I get it." Before Tucker could say anything more, they heard a noise and turned towards the stairs to find Danny clumping down tiredly, yawning a bit and still in her pajamas.

"Well, good _morning_, Sleeping Beauty!" Sam chirped gleefully, and Danny froze in place, snapping her eyes open and taking in the sight of her two best friends standing there with wicked smirks and raised eyebrows. Danny slowly began to turn red under their scrutiny, and she cleared her throat.

"Sam. Tucker. Heh, hi. W-What are you doing here so early...?" she said, turning even redder as Sam began to snicker into her hand.

"Girl, it's nearly 1:30. We're not early, _you're_ late," Tucker said behind a wide smile, and the sight of Danny going even redder made the two collapse with laughter. Danny frowned and grumbled at them, turning to blush at the floor.

"Yeah, well, s'not my fault," she muttered when they'd gotten under control, and Tucker cleared his throat a little before trying to speak again.

"Uh, yeah, Jazz said something about that. Some sort of failed project or something?" Danny sighed.

"Yeah. They've been working on this for _years_. You should've seen Dad's face - he was devastated." Danny frowned as she recalled the events of last night. She'd never seen them so excited over something. "When all the stupid thing was spark and die..."

Sam folded her arms. "When Jazz talked about it, she didn't seem to think it was that big a deal."

Danny only scoffed a bit. "Yeah, well, you know what Jazz thinks of my parents' profession. She makes her opinion about it as subtle as a flying mallet. She isn't very sympathetic about it, 'cause she just sees it as another example of her being right and them being wrong."

She slumped onto the couch in the living room, and felt more than saw Sam and Tucker sit down on either side of her. "I mean, I don't like it much either, since my parents get _no_ respect around here _whatsoever_, but I know how much this meant to them. I... I think they might actually quit over it. It's _that_ bad."

Sam and Tucker looked at each other over Danny's head, sharing the same half-thought. They had a silent debate, arguing with only eyes and expressions. Sam was the one who spoke aloud. "Well... what if _we_ tried to fix it?"

Danny blinked, turning to her. "Wait. What?"

"Y-Yeah," Tucker said, having lost the debate, "Your parents are geniuses, no matter what their reputation is. They must have blueprints and notes that we can look at, see if there's something that they couldn't see because they've been working on it too long. How long did you say they were working on this thing?"

"...Years," Danny offered reluctantly. "The last couple of weeks have been really hectic for them, though."

"See? They've been at it so long, it's probably something small that they overlooked and couldn't figure out where it went wrong. We could probably find it easily. What do you say, Danny?" Sam asked, looking at her with curiosity and excitement. Tucker looked unsure, but seemed like he couldn't help his curiosity either.

Danny frowned, thinking. The memory of her parents' disappointed faces steeled her resolve. "...Alright," she said finally, standing up and heading towards the basement. "But no messing with anything else, got it? The lab's filled with all sorts of weird and crazy stuff, and I don't want anything to happen just from us leaning on the table wrong or something stupid like that."

"Gotcha, Danny," said Sam, and her eagerness was contagious. Both Tucker and Danny smiled slightly as they headed downstairs.

When they hit the bottom, Sam and Tucker's jaws dropped, while even Danny, who'd seen it before, marveled a little at how intense the sight was. Carved into one wall of the lab was a large tunnel, lined on every inch of the inside with wires and gagetry. Several wires ran through the gaping hole into the consoles that sat just outside. Without power, the entire apparatus was black and lifeless.

"Danny..." said Tucker breathlessly. "_This_ is what your parents have been working on?"

"Yup," she said, looking at it critically. "The Ghost Portal. It's meant to be some sort of gateway between this dimension and the one where ghosts live. They know that world exists because there have been reports of natural portals all over the world, though they're unstable and never last long enough for humans to go through and explore it without risk of getting trapped there. This was supposed to be the first man-made portal. But, as you can see," Danny waved at the lifeless machinery, "it didn't work. They had no clue what went wrong."

"Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it?" Sam said enthusiastically, and without another word she went to one of the many paper-strewn desks and picked up the first Portal-related blueprint she found. Danny and Tucker looked at each other dubiously, but followed suit.

For a couple hours, they studied the plans and compared what they found to the life-sized model they had in front of them. Tucker, as the most tech-savvy of them all, was able to check the machine properly. Danny and Sam followed his lead. Slowly, they went through just about every detail the Fentons could've possibly overlooked. All that was left to check out was the inside.

With Tucker the only one able to understand if anything changed on the monitors outside and Sam unable to fit any of the available jumpsuits due to her size, Danny was the reluctant volunteer for the expedition. Zipping up the white and black jumpsuit in her size and bemusedly tearing off the Jack sticker she found on the breast of it, Danny looked up nervously at the Portal that seemed to loom above her. "I... I'm not sure I should do this..."

"Oh, come on, Danny," said Sam, all but bouncing on the balls of her feet. "This doesn't excite you? Being able to see what could be on the other side of that Portal?"

"Well... yeah, I guess..." Danny mused. Drawing in a breath in order to muster her courage, she stepped in before she could chicken out again. It was frightfully dark, and Danny had to cautiously feel her way along the walls of the tunnel.

"Do you see anything that looks out of place, Danny?" she heard Tucker's voice call out, and Danny frowned.

"I can't see much of anything, actually. The light doesn't reach very far in here." Danny shook her head in exasperation. "Hang on, I'm coming back out. See if you can find a flashlight or something."

"Will do," she heard Tucker say, but as Danny turned back around, her feet got tangled in a wire and she fell to the side. With a yelp, she stumbled into the wall, vaguely feeling something depress under her palm as she tried to catch herself.

"You alright?" she heard Sam call, and Danny shook her head as she regained her balance, looking curiously at the section of wall her hand was on, trying to see what had moved.

"...Uh, yeah, I'm-" she started, but was abruptly cut off by an alarm and flashing emergency lights.

**_[Warning: Portal activation imminent.] _**a mechanical voice droned throughout the lab, and all three teens stopped and stared at the ceiling, shocked by the sudden activity. **_[Portal doors closing to contain energy output.]_**

"Wait, what?" Danny said, but her answer came in a sudden slamming sound, and she looked forward to find the doors to the Portal firmly shut in front of her.

"Oh, God!" she cried, rushing forward to try and pry the doors open. She heard Sam and Tucker give similar cries, and heard fists pounding on the doors. She started pounding, herself. "Sam! _Tucker_! Tucker, get me _out_ of here!"

"I'm trying!" she heard him yell, and heard faint typing even through the ongoing alarm. Sam continued to pound on the door. "It's not letting me do anything!"

Danny looked along the walls, trying to see some sort of button that would open the doors from the inside. She found no such thing, and so continued to try prying the doors open. She felt her nails give from the pressure, but her panic and adrenaline didn't allow her to register the pain. Suddenly, the mechanical voice came again.

**_[Activation imminent. 60 percent... 70 percent...]_**

Danny looked behind her and saw the back of the tunnel glowing green. The tunnel started to light up along the walls, the lights slowly approaching her and the core glowing brighter and brighter. She screamed in total fear.

"Sam! _Tucker_!"

"Tucker, get her _out of there!_"

"I'm trying, Danny, I'm trying _so hard_, but it's not letting me-!"

**_[80 percent... 90 percent...]_**

The tunnel glowed brighter. Danny pressed her back against the doors, screaming and sobbing in fear and pain as the wires began to flow with electricity and a thick, dense energy that saturated every breath she took.

"Danny! _Danny_!"

"I can't stop it! _It's not stopping, I can't-!_"

**_[100 percent complete. Portal activating.]_**

Danny gave one last scream as the noise went abruptly silent, and the space filled with light. Her scream cut off as her world went green.

* * *

Sam and Tucker watched, horrified, as the frame of the Portal lit up as it was supposed to. Sam stood back from the doors, the silence chilling her more than the sound did. Tucker had fallen from the chair, staring blankly at the closed doors.

**_[Activation complete]_** came the dreaded voice. **_[Portal opening.]_** The doors slowly slid open, revealing a glowing green field of swirling energy. It cast the entire lab in its glow. It might've looked beautiful, had it been any other time. But instead of admiring the portal, the two teens instead searched its surface frantically, looking for their missing friend.

"D... Danny?" Sam called out timidly, not sounding anything like herself. Any confidence or excitement she had that day had vanished completely, leaving behind a scared little girl. "Danny?" she called again, her voice going higher with fear. Tucker couldn't find his voice at all, certain in his mind of what had just happened.

Before Sam could call out again, a hand shot out and gripped the edge of the portal, causing her to scream. Tucker sat up straighter, unsure. The white gloved hand was not the same color as Danny's jumpsuit.

The hand gripped tighter, seeming to double check its purchase before a boot the same color shuffled through the Portal. It hit the ground hard, stumbling over the few inches of metal between the bottom of the portal and the floor of the lab, and with the loss of balance the rest of the body fell through, tumbling a couple steps forward before landing face first onto the floor.

Sam backed up several steps, crashing into a table. This was not Danny. This... being wore a jumpsuit that was mostly black, and had long silver hair that fell down its back and lay along the floor of the lab in a glowing halo around its head. Even the body itself was glowing. What was this thing? Where was _Danny_?

"D-Danny?" she called again, staying well away from the mysterious figure and turning back towards the Portal. If this thing could come out, surely Danny could too? "_Danny!?_"

The figure groaned. "S... Sam...?" it whimpered, and Sam started with a yelp. She fell to the floor, her legs no longer able to hold her weight. She barely noticed Tucker come up beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders protectively as the other held one of the Fentons' many weapons. He had no idea if it worked, but he prayed it did.

"H-How do you know her name?" he demanded, sounding far braver than he felt. The thing groaned again.

"Tu... Tucker? 'Zat you...? Wha..." it said, trying and failing to lift itself from the ground. It finally managed to sit up, and held one hand to its head. "God, what jus' happened... my hea's killin' me... and..." it lifted a hand to its throat, sounding startled. "And what the _hell_ happened to my _voice_?"

"Answer me!" Tucker screamed, cringing as he heard his voice crack a little. He cringed again as the thing's head snapped up, revealing large green eyes the same color as the Portal. "How do you know our names? What _are_ you!?"

"Wha... Tucker it's _me_. _Danny?_ What, you don't recognize me?" The thing seemed genuinely hurt and confused. Tucker didn't lower the gun one bit.

"The _hell_ you are. Danny's a- Danny doesn't look a _thing_ like you. _You're not Danny_."

The thing winced, blinking as it looked back and forth between him and Sam, staring a little too long at the silent girl and causing Tucker to draw her closer to his body. It looked back at Tucker, looking for all the world like _he_ was in the wrong.

"What do you _mean_ I'm not Danny? Of _course_ I'm Danny! I-!" It cut off abruptly as it made a double take at its hands, which were flailing emphatically with its words. It took a hand and looked puzzled at it. "What is up with my suit? And what is this silver stuff-_ow!_" It pulled on its hair with a shout of surprised pain. Tucker didn't know what to make of it.

Suddenly, the thing shot up and Tucker nearly pulled the trigger until he realized that it wasn't going for them, but rather the mirror situated somewhere behind them. Tucker and Sam both turned and stood slowly, finding that the being was staring at its reflection with the most dumbfounded look either of them had ever seen.

It ran a hand over its cheek, trembling. It ran the other through its hair, which was completely messy and all over the place. It kept staring as though it couldn't believe what it was seeing. "I... I'm a _girl_," it whispered, as though saying it too loudly would break some sort of spell. Tucker and Sam shared a glance, but Tucker never put down the gun, unsure of what was happening.

"I... I'm a _girl_. I'm a _real girl_. Oh, my God, I'm... I..." Its eyes widened and it abruptly looked back at Tucker and Sam, making the two of them flinch and for Tucker to raise his gun up to aim straight at its head. The thing winced and lifted its hands as though to calm him down.

"Tucker... Tucker, I'm _Danny_, okay? I... we grew up together, remember? I did all this weird and perverted stuff, but you knew it was 'cause I was trans, 'member?" Tucker nearly dropped the gun in surprise. The thing smiled. "Yeah. Only you, me, and Sam know that. And Sam, _Sam_-" it turned to the goth girl and Tucker raised the gun again. It ignored him. "Sam, you gave me this beautiful, _beautiful_ comb for my birthday, which is how you let me know that you _knew_, and I always wanted to wear it, but my hair was too short and I was scared of wearing girl stuff in public, but Sam, I can _wear_ it now because my hair- God, look at my _hair_!"

It giggled and held up the silver hair that went down to its lower back, and Tucker forgot his gun completely at the look of _joy_ on the thing's face. "My _hair_, Sam! I'm a girl! I'm a _real girl_, and I don't have to hide anymore, trapped in the wrong body!" It put its hands to its chest and began to twirl. "Oh, my God, I'm _free_! I never thought-"

It stopped so abruptly that Tucker flinched again and started to raise the gun, but Sam stopped him. The look of realization on Sam's face made him recall the thing's actual words and it started to dawn on him too. "Danny...?" Sam whispered for the first time in a while, but the thing- _Danny_- didn't acknowledge it. She felt along her chest very slowly, lifting another hand to her neck and searching there.

"Where... where's my pulse?" she whispered, and Sam and Tucker both paled. "Where's... what..." She turned back to the mirror and leaned against the sink, but before she could take any true stock of her appearance, her body seemed fade somewhat and she tumbled _through_ the sink with a scream. Tucker dropped the gun, both he and Sam calling Danny's name in panic.

Danny sat up with a groan, holding her head again. The other two kneeled on either side of her. Danny looked at her hands in fear.

"Sam... Tucker..." she looked up at the two of them with unfamiliar green eyes. "...Guys...? ...Am I dead?"

Before either of them could answer, as if they _could_ answer a question like that, a ring of bright white light formed around the poor girl's waist, blinding all three of them. The light burned through their eyelids, and disappeared after a moment. Sam opened her eyes first, gasping and bringing her hands to her mouth. Tucker looked next and toppled over at the sight of a normal, black-haired, _male_ Danny.

Danny herself opened her eyes and looked at her hands, which were the same as they'd ever been. She hesitantly lifted a hand up to her neck and sobbed when she felt a weak but steady pulse under her fingers. She stood up shakily, with help from her two friends, and looked again at the mirror.

She stood silently as she stared at her reflection, seeing the black hair, the blue eyes, and the Adam's apple that quivered as she swallowed. Turning back to look at her two best friends, it was all she could do to fall forward and cry into their shoulders. Sam and Tucker began to cry as well, wondering just what happened.

No one had any idea what would happen next. And that scared the hell out of them.

* * *

**Origin chapter, at your service. Many, many thanks to my first and most helpful reviewer, _NebulousMistress_! But don't let her be the only one - if anybody has any helpful hints, criticism, or advice for me, or just wants to pitch me a scenario they'd like to see in this AU, please review and let me know!**


	4. The Next Step

_"Sweetie, that's the third plate you've broken so far!"_

_"Danny, why do you keep dropping your books?"_

_"Mr. Fenton, clean up that mess! And detention for destroying school property **again**."_

_"Gosh, Danny, you've gotten so clumsy lately..."_

"Danny, your hand's gone missing again."

Danny groaned as she thrust her hand under the lunch table hurriedly, looking around the room to see if anybody noticed. No one glanced in her direction, though Sam and Tucker were looking at her with matching looks of concern.

Focusing hard on the desire to make her hand visible again, she peeked at the offending limb to find that it was thankfully visible again. Danny sighed in relief and dropped her head to the table. She ignored the spike of pain that only added to the headache that was already there.

"Danny...?" Tucker said softly. "Are you alright?"

"No, Tuck," said Danny miserably, her voice muffled. "I'm not. I don't understand what's happening to me. People don't have body parts go missing or-or fall through tables or have stuff fall through their hands! _It's not possible!_"

"Danny, hush, you're getting too loud," Sam said hurriedly, noticing the mild attention their table was getting. After a few seconds of silence, their attention went elsewhere and the three of them sighed in relief before Sam turned back to the distraught girl.

"Listen, Danny. You've put this off long enough. It's been a week. You can't ignore it and this stuff is obviously just not gonna stop on its own. We need to confront this."

"Sam's right," Tucker added, and he grimaced when Danny's miserable eyes were turned towards him. "This isn't going away. We need to figure out what's up."

Danny stared at the two of them silently, wishing that she could simply ignore her two best friends and keep trying to pretend that everything was normal. But with no warning, her legs began to tingle strangely and the support of the bench she sat on disappeared as she fell through it and collapsed in a heap on the unsanitary floor of the cafeteria.

Instantly, the whole room burst into jeering laughter. All except Sam and Tucker, who leaned over in both fear and worry to check on her. Danny's cheeks burned with humiliation and misery as she groaned in pain. Rubbing her back, she looked up at the two of them and nodded subtly with resignation.

She couldn't ignore it any longer. It was time she stopped trying.

* * *

After school that day, Danny and Tucker both headed for Tucker's house while Sam excused herself to hers to gather a few things for the meeting. The two of them had no clue what she was getting, but didn't bother asking.

When they arrived at the house, Tucker made some half-hearted excuse about playing video games as they headed up the stairs to the boy's room. When they got there, Tucker closed the door and locked it. And they both sat in silence for a good minute and a half as they both waited for the other to speak.

The silence was broken when Danny felt herself tingle again and groaned before falling through Tucker's bed and onto the floor below it. Tucker cried out in alarm, but Danny, having done this before with her own bed, could only wrinkle her nose a little.

"When was the last time you cleaned under here, Tuck?" she asked. Tucker couldn't help but snort at the absurdity of the question, which in turn made Danny laugh and then sneeze from the dust, making Tucker laugh harder. Within seconds, the two of them had fallen into near-hysterics.

After a few minutes of harsh breathing, during which Tucker had helped his friend from under the bed, the silence threatened to overtake them again. But this time, Tucker wasn't having it and chose to make the first move. "Okay, first thing's first," he said, making Danny look up at him. "Can you make yourself... change?"

Danny paled a little. "W-What?"

"You know. Change. To the way you looked... After." Danny could practically hear the capital letter. "When you were a-"

"I know what you meant," Danny cut in, her eyes shut. "But I don't think I can."

"Okay," Tucker said carefully. "Why?"

"Well, because..." Danny sighed in frustration. "Okay, it's not that I _can't_. Heck, I can _feel_ it, I know that I can. I just... don't _want_ to."

Tucker blinked at that. "Wait, really? How come?" Danny looked across at him with this dark look on her face, making Tucker feel like he missed something really important.

"Tucker... I was _dead_." And Tucker froze, remembering. "My heart wasn't beating. I felt _so_ cold. My skin was pale, my hair was white, my eyes were green... everything was _wrong_." Danny stared off into middle distance as she remembered. "But at the same time, it didn't _feel_ wrong. The only way I knew it was unnatural was because I knew what I usually looked and felt like, but it was in that same way that you wouldn't know that a green sky was strange unless you grew up _knowing_ it was supposed to be blue. I... I'm not explaining this very well..."

"No, no, you're okay," Tucker said, scratching his head in thought. "So, you're scared to change because you think you'll die?"

"I... yeah."

"But you're alive now."

Danny blinked. "Um, yeah, Tuck. And I kinda don't wanna die again."

"But see, that's my point. You didn't die in that accident. If you did, you wouldn't be here, or it would've taken a medical team to bring you back instead of a fancy light show. I... I think you might've become some sort of ghost."

Danny stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "Tucker, being a _ghost_ kinda involves _dying_."

"Except that _you're not dead_." Tucker stepped towards Danny, grabbing her hand and placing it flat on her chest, where they could both feel the slow but firm pulse. "Your heart is still beating. You're standing here, talking to me. We didn't pull your body out of that Portal, you walked out of it yourself." Tucker's voice cracked here, and Danny took a shuddered breath. "Now, we need to figure this out. You've already thoroughly shown that ignoring it does absolutely nothing to help, so we're gonna have to learn about it. And the first step that I can think to take is to trigger that transformation. Okay?"

Danny stared hard at Tucker, and there was something behind her eyes that made Tucker want to shiver, but he held firm and stared back at her. After several long seconds, Danny finally nodded and stepped back. Tucker let her, dropping her wrist and giving her space.

A moment passed, and nothing happened. Tucker stood by watching intently and Danny stood with her eyes closed and her jaw clenched. But then, as though a switch was flipped, a ring of bright light formed around her waist. Tucker took a step back and watched with awe as the rings split into two, one breaking apart as it hit the floor and one dissipating into the air a few inches above her head.

Just as the rings disappeared, someone knocked loudly on Tucker's door, startling the two of them rather badly. Tucker crossed the room opened the door warily and sighed in relief as he saw Sam instead of his mother.

"C'mon in, Sam," he said, letting her in and locking the door behind her. "I've just gotten Danny to transform."

"Really?" said Sam with excitement, dropping the bag she brought with her to the floor. "Where is she?"

"She's right..." Tucker trailed off as he realized that Danny was no where to be found. "Danny? Danny, you still here?"

"Yeah," came a disembodied voice, and both Tucker and Sam blinked at the unfamiliarity of it. "Yeah, I'm... you startled me, Sam," she said reproachfully, and Sam grinned apologetically.

"Sorry about that," she said sheepishly. "Can you come back for us?"

"Uh..." after a moment of silence, Danny finally faded back into view, making Tucker and Sam's heads spin towards her. They couldn't help but stare as they got their first good look at Danny since the accident.

She was still dressed in the hazmat suit, but it was mostly black with silver gloves, boots, belt and collar. Her hair spilled in a wild tangle across her shoulders and down to her lower back, and was colored a brilliant white. Her eyes were a supernatural shade of light green.

And she was undeniably a female.

"This is _amazing!_" Sam said with her hands over her mouth, and the two other teens looked at her with vaguely amuzed expressions. Though Danny's was so interlaced with fear and discomfort that it came off as more of a grimace.

"Yeah," said Danny dubiously. "...Amazing."

"What, you don't think so?" Sam asked, circling the girl and looking her up and down. Danny had to firmly repress the urge to go invisible again.

"She was scared since she says she's dead when she's like this," Tucker offered, looking just as interested as Sam but having the self-restraint to keep his distance. "I disagree."

That made Danny turn towards him with wide eyes, her expression equal parts confused and upset. "What do you mean, you disagree? I can feel it, Tucker, I'm not alive right now. I'm-"

"_Not_ dead," Tucker cut in firmly, his eyes filled with such conviction that Danny almost literally had no choice but to shut up. "Your heart may not be beating right now, but you're still here. And you can change back whenever you want, I bet. It's like this guy I saw on TV once - he could stop his heart for a full minute and restart it on his own no problem."

Danny stared at him. "...I've already been like this for five minutes, Tuck."

"Then it makes for one heck of a trick then, doesn't it?"

"I think you're missing the point here, Tucker," Danny said through gritted teeth.

"What, that you're dead? Which we all know you're not? Right." Tucker walked over to Danny and placed his hands on her shoulders. They both blinked, realizing that he had a couple inches on her now. Tucker shook it off, continuing to speak. "Danny, if you were dead, I couldn't _do_ this. I couldn't _touch_ you. I couldn't _talk_ to you. I couldn't try to convince you that you weren't dead because it would be a _fact_ that you were. So _stop it_."

Danny, too overwhelmed to speak, simply nodded. She looked over her shoulder to find Sam standing apart from them, her eyes suspiciously glassy. She still smiled, however, when she met Danny's eyes. "So," she said, almost cheerily but not quite. "How does it feel? Describe it for us."

Blinking at how surreal the situation was, Danny focused on herself for a moment. She pointedly ignored the uneasy stillness in her chest and paid attention to everything else. "I feel... light. Like there was a weight on my shoulders that I never knew about that's been completely removed."

"Is that because you're a ghost, or because you're a girl?" Tucker asked, and Danny marvelled that she had to think about it.

"You know, it might be a little of both," Danny conceded, before frowning. "But we never agreed that I was a ghost."

"Well, I don't see what else you could be," Tucker said candidly, stepping away from her and sitting down at his computer chair. "I mean, if nothing else, this sorta proves that ghosts exist, right?"

"...Right," said Danny slowly, not really seeing his point. Sam could, though.

"And your parents did say that turning invisible and intangible were the most basic abilities a ghost could have..."

_Intangible. Is that the word for it?_ Danny thought to herself, but what came out of her mouth was: "You guys listen to my parents?"

"Hey, we're there for nearly just as many lectures on ghosts as you are, Danny," Sam said, rolling her eyes. "Even without believing they exist, _something_ had to stick."

"Yeah, okay," Danny said, leaning against the wall. "But that doesn't prove I'm a ghost."

And then she turned intangible and fell through.

Twenty minutes and some panicking later, the three of them were finally back in Tucker's room. Danny grudgingly broke the silence this time.

"...Okay, so... I'm a ghost," she said, having spent the better part of the time with her upper body in the hallway and her lower half still in the room, trying to figure out how to purposely go intangible all while trying to stay quiet so that Mrs. Foley didn't come up to investigate. "I've seen the light. Now what?"

If Sam noticed the deadpan tone, she didn't say anything about it. Instead, she picked up her nearly-forgotten bag and said, "Well, one thing we can do is get you out of that jumpsuit."

Both Danny and Tucker looked at her like deer in headlights. "Huh?"

Sam sighed heavily in frustration. "Danny, do you realize that that thing is hanging off of you?"

Danny blinked and looked down. She was so caught up in everything else, she never even noticed. "Huh. Guess I'm a lot smaller now than when I'm in my... human form." And damned if that wasn't _really weird_ to say.

"In any case," Sam said, "I brought some clothes from my closet for you to try. We're not the _exact_ same size, but I'm closer to it than that suit is. Tucker, out."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"Because, even though Danny's always been a girl on the inside, she's now a girl on the _outside_ too, and I don't think she'd appreciate having a peeping Tom for a best friend." And with that, Sam practically shoved the boy out of his own room and slammed the door behind him. The last thing he heard was _"Now, I can't do much about those boxers now, but we'll get something for you later" _and Tucker all but fled downstairs to the kitchen, never knowing that his red face matched Danny's entirely.

* * *

After gathering a large plate of cheese and crackers as slowly as he could get away with, just barely remembering Sam's eating habits and being strangely uninterested in meat at the moment, Tucker warily went back up to his room and knocked on the door. "Hey, uh, girls? Is it safe to come in yet?"

A beat of silence, then: "Come on in, Tucker. We're ready." Tucker hesitated a moment more, and then opened the door. What he saw nearly made him drop the plate.

Danny looked... _well_. She was dressed in form-fitting black jeans that showed off hips that she never used to have, along with a white tank top that reached down to her upper thighs, decorated throughout with abstract green designs. She also wore a jacket colored light green, and seemed more for appearances than to actually keep her warm, since it had such short sleeves. Sam had also apparently had another pair of black boots that nearly matched her own, and a green scrunchy barely contained the wild mess of hair that fell down Danny's back.

Sam snapped her fingers in Tucker's face, and he realized that he'd been staring.

"You..." he squeaked, and then he cleared his throat a little. "You look _good_."

There must've been something in his voice, because Danny's eyes widened. "Oh God, you're not going to try hitting on me, are you?"

"_No_. No, I'm not... that is, not that you're _not_... I mean..." Tucker continued to splutter and both of their faces steadily got redder and redder, and Sam just sat back and enjoyed the show for a little while.

Once the hilarity and embarrassment of the situation died down a bit, Sam went into details. "Some of the clothes are mine, and some of them are clothes that my parents bought for me," she said. "That's to say, anything lighter than dark green in the house is all them. But you look good in those colors," she added, making Danny blush. Interestingly, her cheeks turned green instead of red, but neither Sam nor Tucker thought it prudent to mention it.

Sam continued, "Still, what I really think you need is an outfit that's all you. So, that'll be my project."

"What do you mean?" Tucker asked, and Sam grinned.

"The way my parents are, there have been times where I haven't been allowed to buy anything darker than beige. So I had to make my own clothes. I've gotten pretty good at it." Danny and Tucker stared.

"Wait, are you saying you'll personally _tailor_ an outfit for her?" Tucker managed to choke out. Sam nodded, and Danny gaped like a fish.

"W-Wait, wait, hold on. You're both talking like _this_," she gestured to her body as a whole, "is going to be a _thing_." Sam stared at her seriously.

"Do you want it to be?"

Danny blinked, thrown. She fell backwards onto Tucker's bed and absently played with the ends of her hair. However, the moment she started to speak, white rings appeared around her waist without warning, splitting apart and leaving her as a human boy again. The three of them were startled by the suddeness of the change, and Danny's fingers twitched helplessly in the air as the hair she so coveted had vanished.

Sam stood and walked over to Danny, only to sit beside her and place a hand on her shoulder. The outfit had vanished along with her ghost form, but Sam had a feeling it would still be there if and when she changed back.

Nobody said anything for a while, all of them lost in their own thoughts. Finally Danny lifted her head, clenching her hands into fists in her lap.

"I... I don't know what all this means," she said quietly, making the other two look at her. "But... I don't really want to give it up. I..." she chuckled ruefully. "I _like_ it. It's strange, unnatural even, but I can't help it. I..." She felt a hand on her fist and looked up to see Tucker smiling with a vaguely grim look on his face.

"We get it," he said, and as Sam squeezed her shoulder in agreement, Danny couldn't bring herself to doubt him. "There's still a lot we need to figure out about this, but you wouldn't go back to the way things were even if you could, would you?"

"No," Danny said immediately, startling herself. Tucker nodded.

"Then it's settled," he said. "This is a thing now." Danny chuckled a little along with Sam. Tucker smiled. "You ready for it?"

Danny looked at him and Sam both, thinking. "Not really," she said, twisting her fingers into the hem of her shirt. "But I'll figure it out. You'll help me, right?"

"Was there really any doubt?" Sam said with a smile, and Danny knew with absolute certainty that there wasn't. Not even a little.

* * *

**Okay, that's that for this chapter. Next one may or may not involve Vlad, depending on whether or not I can find a copy of Bitter Reunions that I can watch online and if I can reliably write an AU version of that episode without seeing it again. Vlad's hard and complicated to write, and I wanna do it convincingly, even if his lines wouldn't be original. Plus, I'm sure none of you just want a transcript of the episode, just with a female Danny, so there's that to consider.**

**In other news, thanks for all the support I've gotten so far! _NebulousMistress_, _Remmy18_, _Princess of Rose_, and _GhostWriter267_, you all get cookies! And thank you to all those who've alerted and favorited this story. It means I'm doing something right.**

**So, anyone with prompts or advice, please let me know! I even encourage criticism, as long as you're not being outright mean about it. I'm always working to improve my writing and make this plot as believable as possible. Please review and gimme your best shot!**


	5. Bitter Realities

"Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Of course I know where I'm going! I have an impeccable sense of direction!"

"Well that _impeccable sense of direction_ of yours had us going around in circles for the past five hours! Maybe that _impeccable sense of direction_ ought to direct us to somebody who knows where they're going!"

"Oi, if you two don't quit flapping your beaks, I'll direct you _both_ straight into the nearest woodchipper!"

"And if all _three_ of you don't get lost, _I'll_ direct you all into the nearest Thermos."

The three fez-wearing ghost vultures immediately quit their argument in surprise and turned towards the newest member of their party, a white-haired ghost girl floating beside them with a severely unimpressed look on her face.

One vulture didn't take the hint and said, "Oh, don't you worry your pretty head none, missy. We're _already_ lost." The comment only served to earn him a blow to the ribs from one of the others and a raised eyebrow from her.

"Hey, maybe we should ask her for directions. Don't women have an affinity for that sort of thing?" asked another, and the three of them turned to her with speculative expressions. Or, as speculative as a bird's face could get. Danny rolled her eyes.

"If it gets you out of here faster," she said with gritted teeth, "fine. But hurry it up - I'm nearly late for curfew," she added, looking slightly pained at the large clock that was inching ever closer towards ten. She was _so_ close to being on time tonight...

"Fine, fine," said one, who seemed to be the leader of the three. He floated closer reluctantly. "We are on a search-and-destroy mission," he said, and Danny raised her eyebrow again at the wording. Cliche much? "Can you help us find, and peck to death, this man here?" With a flourish she was presented with a rather old photo of...

"D-Dad?" _What in the world are they doing with a photo of Dad?_

"Ah-hah, see?" said one vulture to the leader, who had a rather sour look on his face. "I told you to ask for directions. Now we don't have to go flying around in any more circles!"

"I'll say," said Danny, snatching the photo away, "because you aren't getting anywhere near him!"

The three vultures turned towards her menacingly, flaring their talons. "Is that a _challenge_, girly?"

The speaker was immediately blasted backwards out of the air.

"No," Danny said with a smirk, fixing the remaining two with a poisonous green glare, her hand still smoking. "Not much of a challenge at all."

The vultures screeched and dive-bombed her, and Danny ducked while reaching up to grab one by the legs. The bird squawked indignantly, helpless as she swung him into his partner. They both tumbled away, and Danny had a split second's warning before turning intangible just in time to avoid an attack from the third.

Fixing all three of them with a blast to the rear, she flew back towards the city, cringing as she caught sight of the clock tower.

"Aw, heck, I'm gonna be late again, aren't I?" She couldn't give the thought any more attention as she was tackled from behind and knocked towards the clock face. She managed to turn intangible just before she collided, and righted herself within the gears of the tower.

Growling in irritation, Danny flew out of the tower, fists blazing. With a roar, she grabbed two vultures by the throat and knocked their heads together forcefully before flinging them directly into the third. They were propelled several feet up into the air before they managed to right themselves and flew off before she could get another chance to take out more of her frustration on them.

Snorting air from her nose like an irate bull, she took another look at the torn photo. _I need to keep an eye out,_ she thought, narrowing her eyes. _Whoever's trying to off Dad might keep trying._

She was interrupted in her thoughts by a loud bell. Turning back toward the clock, she cursed at the sight of the hands pointed directly at ten. Dejected, Danny slipped the photo into her pocket and prepared for yet another confrontation from her disappointed parents.

* * *

"Look, Mom, Dad, you don't get it!" said Danny the morning after, sitting before her parents as they lectured her _again_ about how she was falling short of her responsibilities. The ones _they_ knew of, anyway. "I'm going through a _lot_, right now. You have no _idea_ what it's like to be a kid today."

Maddie simply scoffed. "Oh, please, Danny. You aren't going through anything that we didn't when we were your age."

_Oh, I doubt you were a half-ghost girl trapped in a human boy's body when **you** were fourteen_, Danny thought, repressing the urge to snort in disdain. Instead, she said nothing, letting her expression say what she couldn't.

Jazz, who was nearby pretending to read, chose this moment to step in. "Of course Danny doesn't think you can relate to him," she said, and only an age of practice kept Danny from flinching at the wrong pronoun. "You don't tell him anything about your childhood!"

Danny blinked. "Wait, what?"

Jazz ignored her completely. "You don't tell him about how you met, where you lived..."

Jack and Maddie turned towards Jazz, looking thoughtful. Danny only looked annoyed. "Jazz..."

"About your high school lives, your first date..."

"Jazz, stop helping."

"Where you went to college..." she trailed off suggestively, and Jack's face lit up.

Danny could only drop her head into her hands. "Why do I feel like this won't end well?"

* * *

"What do you mean, you couldn't _find him?_"

The three vultures gulped as they were brought to task by their boss. "Well, boss," said the leader, cringing when the red gaze fell entirely on him. "You see, we were... _detained_ by the new ghost girl hanging about the place. I'm still trying to fix my tailfeathers," he added, looking disgustedly at his singed backside and far too easily forgetting who he was speaking to.

His priorities were straightened when the being gave a rather manacing growl of mixed anger and frustration. "That's not the first time that girl has ruined my plans," he said, turning away. He pretended not to notice the vultures' mass sigh of relief. "It will cease to matter soon enough. Much as I hate to let that buffoon step foot within twenty miles of my house, let alone set foot directly in it, it will be worth it to finally see the look on Maddie's face when she sees how useless he is compared to me..."

When he started cackling, the vultures wisely chose to leave the immediate vicinity.

* * *

"So... this is the place, huh?" Danny said mildly, ignoring the urge to squeal or drop her jaw at the sight of the large, pristine castle that loomed ahead of them. _Who owns a castle, anyway!?_

"Yup!" said Jack, who was all but bouncing on the balls of his feet. Maddie looked equal parts uncomfortable and impressed, and Jazz just looked flat out impressed. This _was_, after all, the home of Vladimir Masters - one of the richest tycoons in the world. "Ooh, I can't wait to see Vladdie again! It'll be like old times!"

One only had to look at Danny's face to see that she didn't agree the slightest bit. She would be the first to admit that she didn't know anything about Vlad Masters - nothing that Jazz hadn't spouted during the trip to Wisconsin in her attempt to recall everything she knew, anyway - but getting hospitalized and staying out of contact for twenty years didn't exactly invite the idea that all was forgiven.

_Still_, Danny thought, following behind as her family walked towards the castle led enthusiastically by Jack, _I hope, for Dad's sake, that things turn out alright._

They reached the front door after a short walk, but before Jack could knock, the door was opened by a man who Danny knew could only be Vlad Masters. He practically screamed rich, wearing an expensive suit with slicked back hair held in a dignified pony tail. The color of his hair gave Danny pause. _He can't be much older than forty,_ she thought. _Why does he have gray hair?_

Vlad, for his part, looked over the family on his doorstop with a very practiced smile of welcome. His eyes skimmed past the children of the ensemble - they weren't important at the moment. It took a great deal of effort to keep himself in check while addressing Jack, since he would never _greet_ him in a million years. When his eyes landed on Maddie, however, his smile became much more genuine. "Maddie! How wonderful it is to see you! Come in, we'll get you settled in no time..."

He placed his hand on Maddie's shoulder, ushering her in with care. He waited for the children to follow after her and gladly shut the doors in Jack's face. He hid a satisfied smirk as he observed the others' reaction to his castle.

Maddie and her daughter Jasmine were, as expected, enamoured with the interior. They couldn't take their eyes off the spacious foyer or the green and gold decorations. What wasn't expected, however, was the slightly withdrawn demeanor displayed by Maddie's youngest, Daniel. The boy looked slightly nervous and kept looking between the room, the front door, and Vlad himself, though he looked away when he saw that he'd caught Vlad's attention. Vlad raised an eyebrow but dismissed it, turning his attention back to Maddie.

They mingled for a while, Vlad answering questions about his home and making observations about his guests in the meantime. Jasmine seemed malleable enough, her interest in his wealth and achievements enough to keep her occupied. Maddie still cared about Jack enough to let him in, unfortunately, but he supposed he couldn't leave the oaf outside the entire time, much as he wanted to.

Daniel... Vlad didn't quite know what to make of Daniel, for some reason. There was something about the boy, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Perhaps he was simply more perceptive than his family, though to be smarter than Jack was no large feat. He still seemed to care for Jack, however, so whatever the boy was hiding wouldn't be of much use to him. Or so he thought.

As the day waned, he led the family to another wing of the castle, where all of his guests for the reunion would be housed. He was tempted to try putting Jack and Maddie in separate rooms, for his own peace of mind, but Jack followed Maddie wherever she went, so that wouldn't work without making himself suspicious. Instead, he led the children to their rooms just down the hall.

"And this, young Daniel, will be your room," he said after ushering Jasmine to her own room. The chambers were quite spacious, larger than he was certain Jack could afford, and Vlad turned to see what was sure to be an impressed look on the boy's face. Instead, he found a quickly hidden grimace.

"Um, actually sir," he said, looking up at him, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me Daniel. I hate that."

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "Very well, son," he allowed, and wasn't it interesting that that incited an even bigger grimace than before? "I'll leave you to unpack." As he closed the door behind him, his thoughts quickly returned to plans for tomorrow night. Though the curiosity that was Daniel Fenton wasn't placed so far in the back of his head.

* * *

_Well... that went... well._

Danny laid in bed, thinking back towards the events of the day. Vlad was all that she had imagined: rich, well-dressed, slightly snobbish. And he, unfortunately, didn't care as much for her dad as Jack would've liked to believe.

_And cares a little **too** much for Mom,_ Danny thought, her eyes narrowing as she glared at the ceiling. It didn't escape her notice how Vlad would flirt with her mother any chance he got. It made her feel better that Maddie was so obviously not interested, but Vlad's attention seemed just this side of obsessed.

_Just another thing to watch out for_, she mused, before she was brought back to reality by a shuffling sound just outside her door. Blinking, Danny stood and walked to her door, opening it as softly as possible. She poked her head out just as her father passed by in a sort of half-and-half state, muttering about the bathroom every few feet.

Danny shook her head fondly. He did this at home, too, but in those cases the bathroom was just across the hall. Here, the place was so big that he'd get lost before he ever found one. Nodding to herself, she closed the door and then transformed, deciding to just phase him down to a bathroom before anything unfortunate happened.

Keeping quiet and taking advantage of Jack's exhausted mental state, she grabbed him just under his arms and phased him from room to room as quickly as she could without making him suspicious. Finally finding a restroom, she left him to do his thing and phased back outside to the hallway. Before she could even think of heading back to bed, however, a chill ran up her spine and she gasped reflexively, exhaling a blue burst of cold air.

Instantly alert, Danny righted herself in the air and looked around, all senses open. After several seconds of nothing, she paused, confused. Ghosts never _waited_ to attack - they usually came right at her as soon as she sensed them.

"Something's not right," she murmured.

"Hm. Bright girl."

With a gasp, Danny twirled around quickly, coming face to face with a ghost she'd never seen before. He was muscular and menacing, dressed in a white outfit with black accents and a red-lined cape. His skin was blue and his eyes were red, he had black hair done up to look like some sort of devil horns and he smirked at her with pointed eyeteeth, making her shiver.

"Although," he continued, raising an eyebrow. "The time it took you to notice me was rather... lacking, to say the least. Perhaps you should quit the hero business while you're ahead."

Danny backed up a few inches in the air, eyeing him warily. "Y-You know me?"

"Oh, who doesn't?" said the vampire ghost, rolling his eyes dismissively. "The Phantom of Amity Park, who uses her powers for _good_. How... quaint."

Without warning, the ghost blasted her in the stomach, sending her flying into the wall hard enough to crack it. She slid down with a groan, looking up as he stood before her.

"Hmph. You certainly don't seem like much. Not against me, anyway."

Danny stood up shakily, looking at him with fear. "Who... who _are_ you?"

The ghost smirked again. "Plasmius. And you, Phantom, are _in my way._"

And with that, her world went dark.

The ghost girl fell like a rag doll, or a puppet with its strings cut. He supposed he should feel guilty, attacking her so violently, but he never let anything so mild as _chivalry_ get in the way of his goals.

His train of thought was derailed, however, when something entirely unexpected happened, heralded by a flash of white light.

Plasmius blinked, attempting to make the sight register properly. "The ghost girl... is Jack's... _son_...?" In his shock, he himself transformed back into the very familiar form of Vlad Masters.

"Well..." he said, voice filled with awe and no small amount of menacing satisfaction. "This changes _so very much._"

* * *

_One Night Later..._

Danny sighed as she swirled her cup in her hand, watching mildly as the punch she barely drank travelled in circles. This reunion was terrible. Jazz wasn't the least bit interested, judging by how she'd rather watch Packers' documentaries than stay, and Danny couldn't blame her.

She'd never had reason to think on it before, but her father just _could not dance_.

"Hello, son," came a voice, and Danny looked up to find Vlad smiling down at her. "I was wondering if you could do me a favor?"

"Uh, sure, Mr. Masters," said Danny cheerfully, willing to do anything just to get away from her parents for a while. "But, really, Danny's just fine. 'Son' is, uh," she chuckled self-depreciatingly. "It's what my dad calls me."

"I see," said the man, and his tone was so odd that it made Danny frown a little. "Anyway, if you could head up to my lab upstairs, I'd greatly appreciate it. I have a present for your father that I'd like you to bring down."

_A present? _Danny thought, deadpanned._ Really?_ "Um... sure, Mr. Masters. I'll get right on that." And she would take her time doing it, too. Danny had the feeling that she really didn't want to be subjected to that calculating look any longer.

Finding Vlad's lab was simple enough. But, as she suspected, there was no sign of any sort of present anywhere. Vlad had not proved himself the kind of man who could hate Jack and still get him a gift.

_But then, why does he want me here?_ Looking around the lab, her eyes fell on a framed picture with a piece torn out of it. In it was what looked to be younger versions of Vlad and her mother. And the torn bit...

"Oh, _no,_" she whispered in realization.

"Oh, _yes_."

With a gasp, Danny whipped around and transformed, but she was already too late. A small cube was thrown at her feet and before she could even blink, she was trapped from the neck down in a large box-like containment device, which immediately shocked her senseless.

With a screech of pain, Danny instantly lost her grip on her ghost form and became human again. Groaning, she looked up and wasn't at all surprised to find Plasmius again. He chuckled at her glare.

"Do you like it? I received it from Skulker recently. He has a way with weapons and traps," he said, stroking the cube's edge idly.

Danny's eyes furrowed. "Skulker? You work with Skulker?"

"Oh, no, my dear girl," he said with a smirk, which got wider as Danny paled slightly. "Skulker works for _me_. In fact, nearly every ghost you've encountered in Amity Park over the last few months has been an attempt by me to test your father's fighting skills. Instead, I've been thwarted at every turn by your grating _heroics_."

The girl struggled to escape the box, all to aware of the ghost's amused eyes on her, but nothing gave. As she panted, she growled at him, "And what do you want so badly with my dad, huh? What'd he ever do to _you!?_"

This instantly turned Plasmius' smirk into a horrible frown, and Danny recoiled automatically. "What did he _do?_" he asked in a whisper, and Danny started to sweat nervously. "He ruined my _life, **that's**_ what he did!"

And to her utter shock and horror, a set a glowing black rings formed around his waist and split into two, revealing Vlad Masters with his immaculate suit, his tied back silver hair, and the most frightening expression she had ever seen on anyone.

"Oh, my _God_," she whimpered looking up at him, and his return expression made everything just that much worse.

"Oh, trust me," he said, standing a couple steps back and Danny watched with both awe and fear as the man somehow _duplicated_ himself. The second Vlad transformed back into Plasmius and vanished through the wall with a dark chuckle. "_God_ has no say in what will happen to your father once I'm through with him."

"Don't you _dare_ touch my father, you _bastard!_" Danny cried angrily, but she was violently cut off by Vlad's hand around her throat.

Vlad seemed to hum in thought, twisting Danny's head around this way and that as though examining her. The girl cringed violently, but couldn't move to get away.

"You know, I find it quite fascinating the way your ghost form has responded to your gender dysphoria," he said casually, making Danny flinch violently. Vlad ignored her. "I imagine you know very little about yourself. Have you ever even told anyone?" he asked, daring to actually sound _concerned_. Danny had an entirely understandable urge to spit in his face.

Instead of possibly risking her life by doing so, she remained silent. The answer was technically _no_, since she'd never _needed_ to tell Sam and Tucker, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of an answer, nor did she want to bring a madman's attention over to her friends by accident. However, Vlad read enough of a conflict in her expression to feel satisfied on his own terms, and he smirked.

"I can help you, my dear," he said gently, shifting his punishing chokehold into a caress of her cheek. Danny leaned away from it, but could only move so far. "I can teach you how to use your powers, learn what you're capable of. You won't have to hide who you are anymore.

"And all you have to do is renounce your father," Vlad said with a smile, and Danny could only look at him as though he'd grown two extra heads. "You haven't even told him, I sure, because you are afraid. My sweet girl, I promise you you'll have no such reason to fear me..."

Danny'd had enough. Regardless of consequences, she gave an ugly snort in the back of her throat and spat the nastiest loogie she could straight into his eye. Vlad reared back in disguist, finally getting out of her personal space. She then glared at him as poisonously as she could without being able to turn her eyes green.

"I am _not_ afraid of my parents," she growled. "They will love me no matter _what_. _You_, on the other hand, I want absolutely _**nothing**_ to do with - I don't care _what_ you think you can teach me. I will _never_ give up on Dad. Not for someone like **_you_**."

Vlad glared daggers into her, and Danny gave back for everything she was worth, baring her teeth in a sub-vocal growl. After several seconds, Vlad sneered nastily and said, "You'll change your tune soon enough, little badger," walking back down the stairs in as dignified a manner as he could, leaving Danny alone in the lab and still trapped in the box.

And so continued one of the most stressful evenings of her life.

Later on, it would feel like a dream. Or a nightmare. All she had to do was open her eyes, however, and she'd see the holes in the wall of the castle, the superficial damage to the RV, and the bruised on her throat that she just barely managed to hide.

Looking out the window as she and her family finally began the trip back home, Danny made a valiant effort to keep her face carefully neutral. If anybody looked back at her now, they'd see a slightly bored teenaged boy. But inside... inside her head was a _mess_. All this time, thinking that she'd been alone, one of a kind... and she didn't need to be. Yes, her specific situation was still unique, but Vlad's offer was tempting, on one level.

She wanted to learn. She wanted to know that she didn't need to hide. But the cost was far too high and unreasonable. She couldn't dare.

Danny sighed near-silently, wishing with all her heart that they were home. She desperately needed someone she could trust.

* * *

**Well, this one took a lot out of me. I very nearly didn't finish it. If it feels disjointed in places, I apologize - I didn't want to just retell the episode, but there's a reason I've never tried novelizations. I hope I got Vlad down well enough. I wanted him to be more menacing than he was in the episode, but let me know if he came off too OOC.**

**But, yes. Same requests as before - review to give me advice, prompts, or critiques. Be sure to tell me if I'm doing something wrong or unpalatable, so that I can take it into account next time. And continue to favor and follow, so I can see my blessed stats counter go up, and up, and up...**

**What else... oh! Brownies, for _Remmy18_, _werestillflying_, and _GhostWriter267_, my reviewers for last chapter. Keep 'em coming, folks, I got a limitless supply of virtual treats to share! ;P**


End file.
